How vital is a healthy nation to a country’s well-being and socio-economic

development cannot be over-emphasised and therefore it is imperative that any national developmental plan must include comprehensive policies and programmes geared to promote quality health care and to ensure all strata of the population, regardless of gender, ethnicity, geographic remoteness and poverty level have accessibility to proper health care.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), better health is central to human happiness and well-being. It also makes an important contribution to economic progress, as healthy populations live longer, are more productive, and save more.
Many factors influence health status and a country’s ability to provide quality health services for its people. Ministries of health are important actors, but so are other government departments, donor organisations, civil society groups and communities themselves. For example: investments in roads can improve access to health services; inflation targets can constrain health spending; and civil service reform can create opportunities – or limits – to hiring more health workers.
WHO estimates that approximately 1.2 billion people in the world live in extreme poverty (less than one US dollar per day). Poverty creates ill-health because it forces people to live in environments that make them sick, without decent shelter, clean water or adequate sanitation.
WHO said it supports countries to design and implement ‘pro-poor’ health policies, that is, health policies which prioritise and respond to the needs of poor people. This work includes global advocacy, regional initiatives and direct support to ministries of health in developing countries.
At the global level, this experience is synthesised to form recommendations on best practice. Health and poverty issues differ markedly from country to country contexts, with countries emerging from and affected by conflicts presenting a particular challenge.
In our country, Guyana, the government has been working consistently and persistently to improve public health care delivery through increasing budgetary allocations to the health sector, intensification of training of medical personnel, development of specialised health care facilities, establishment of health care facilities in the hinterlands and remote communities and conducting regular medical outreaches among others.
As such, our public health care system has been dramatically transformed, albeit there is still a long way to go to bring it to the desired levels.
The modern trend in health care is to place increasing emphasis on preventive health programmes which is sensible because it is most advantageous and makes great economic sense with such an approach.
Therefore, most modern health care systems are geared in this direction.
The disclosure by the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders that they will be launching a Health and Wellness Club later this year is welcome and perhaps long overdue.
Health Minister Dr Bheri Ramsaran noted that there are a lot of persons, especially the elderly folk and those that cannot access medical care in the country; so with this club they will take medical attention to them, in their homes or any other locations where they may be present.
He made reference to the new batch of Cuba-trained Guyanese doctors that  some of them will be placed in this Wellness Club, to function and that they will be travelling around the country to serve and help patients.
This is a most commendable initiative because indeed, many of our senior citizens and those from remote communities find it difficult in many instances to access medical attention.
This initiative, when implemented, will become yet another plus for our improving public health care system.